At an important dinner for you, how much more would you pay for the same wine you get in a supermarket at $ 100? How much more would you pay for a coffee at Café de Paix, in Paris? These types of questions are unconsciously resolved in the minds of consumers. The answer depends on the value of the “Purchase Experience”.
In almost every act of our lives, we have the option to choose. Thus, a basic need can be met either with the acquisition of commodities, or with products obtained in a place where you want to spend time and willingly pay more for what you buy.
The economy of experience ascends by steps. We have commodities at a basic level: fungible goods, followed by products: tangible goods, then services: intangibles and, as a last step, memorable experiences.
Most companies are able to manufacture products that meet generic needs, while the most innovative companies are focusing on the creation of experiences with appeals to the sensory and perceptual.
Chief Experiential Officers
Many companies begin to have in their organization a new position: Chief Experiential Officers, who know about the disciplines of the new sciences of behavior, art, plastic and architecture and their contributions to the stimulation of the sense organs .
The “creators of experiences” are based on Visual Marketing to achieve from orderly exhibitions to true set designs that represent experiences that exceed the expectations of the client.
Visual Marketing for whom?
Visual Marketing is a selection of tools that enable the staging of an experience, in the local. Over the years as a teacher of Visual Marketing courses in retail chains, I rescue that once you are taught to be aware of the design elements, even the most basic, they change personal perceptions and become part of life everyday Colors, textures, shapes, details help to awaken memorable sensations.
Thinking about employee training, there is an issue that many companies seem to forget: how to build memorable experiences for clients, when they are not valid for employees ?, what “affection” towards their task will have a repository of a chain of retail when faced with a question about a product, their own colleagues respond “Ask the girl who accommodates”?
Successful management
As in any creative act, the good result is not born from empty inspiration of content, but can only be given from knowledge. Successful management is based on the adequate definition of the Purchase Experience, the clustering of clients and their needs, and a strong coherence between objectives and tactics to satisfy them.
To do this, we work on factors that influence emotional aspects: colors, lighting, music, smells, tastes and touch.
Every time a venue is opened, a play is staged and it is inevitable to pass to the design, creative act. We thus pose a double problem: How is a creative act distinguished? How do we know if it fulfills its purpose or not? In the theater intuition is asserted; for business, intuition confronted with consumer behavior.
For the staging of the experience we must consider the following aspects:
– Prepare a story that allows identifying the main characteristics of the client. What are your interests, opinions and attitudes towards certain situations in life in general?
– Define the thematic axis of the experience , which is derived from the knowledge of the client’s needs (expressed, real, delight or secret).
– Consider the products or category of products that will be part of the experience.
– Determine the degree of participation that the client is expected to have in the experience, which may be: Educational, Escapist, Entertainment or Aesthetic.
– Develop and supervise the production in detail , stopping at the component elements of the scenery.
– Establish the space assigned to the staging, considering that it must allow people to transit and interact in it.
– Define the materials that will be used for construction.
In design there is a function, but beyond it, there is its expression. To turn the experience into a memorable event is to make it remember it and want to go back to it. And that is exactly what successful businesses achieve.